Fedora (Linux) is Destroying it self

[Michael Nielsen]

Kevin Kofler wrote:
> Michael Nielsen wrote:
>   
>> 4. Everything is thrown in huge collective directories, such as
>> /usr/bin, /usr/lib etc, and it is a huge mess
>>     
>
> This is called the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard, and it encodes decades of
> experience organizing file systems into a standard which minimizes
> differences across implementations.
>   
I know of the standard, however, I really doubt the current Fedora 
configuration really
follows it, I still don't see why everything needs to be thrown in 
/usr/bin?  Currently
on some installations, if you try to open them, are exceedingly heavy, 
I've had smaller
machines stall out, as I try to change the application that starts when 
for instance a movie
is to be played in firefox, apparently due to the amount of files in 
/usr/bin.

>> just like windows with it's system32 directory, which is also a huge mess.
>>     
>
> Actually Window$ is the system which started this "one directory per app"
> stupidity. *nix has never worked that way.
>
>         Kevin Kofler
>
>   
I beg to differ, having worked with several different UNIX flavours, 
I've yet to see a commercial
UNIX that throws everything into one directory.   Though I stopped 
working with the commercial
ones in 1999, and went to Linux then.   I noted the installation 
procedure of not throwing everything
in one directory, before windows 3.1 was implemented, so I doubt it 
started with windows.

There are inherent advantages in not throwing everything in one big blob.

Windows have seperated parts of the applications into specific 
directories, is a good idea, however,
in Windows everything that is shared, is thrown into system32, and 
therefore removing an installation
of a problem is nearly impossible, because there is Junk spread 
throughout the system, relating to a
particular application, one of the causes for problems with windows.

Thus if you need to run a non-packaged software, due to patches that you 
need (security), you can
only hope that the package manager successfully removes everything, and 
does not leave junk behind
which may, or may not affect the running of the newer compilation.

Throwing everything in one directory hierarchy causes one particular 
problem that I personally find
rather annoying, the inability to use the package manager system to have 
multiple versions of
for-instance firefox installed on a system, as I often test on multiple 
versions, however, if I do not
use the package manager, it is trivial to have multiple versions of an 
application installed,
however, now the updates for the application is disabled, and they need 
to be manually updated,
which is annoying.

The same situation can be seen when you run 64 bit systems, sometimes 
you need to run something
in 32bit compatibility, however you cannot install the libraries you 
need because of conflicts in the
packaging system, as - again - everything is thrown into one directory - 
in this case the /usr/share/doc
directory, which means you need to find out how to force the 
installation of the libraries.

/mike.
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